RON HART: Ill Will hunting schools for his kids

Posted on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 at 12:51 pm

Matt Damon, the most outspoken celebrity supporter of public schools and teachers’ unions, is moving to Los Angeles. What makes this notable is that he has sought out and enrolled his four children in private schools.

By Ron Hart

Damon told The Guardian, which broke the Edward Snowden/NSA story (apparently American journalism has been outsourced overseas), “Sending our kids in my family to private school was a big, big deal. And it was a giant family discussion. But it was a circular conversation, really, because ultimately we don’t have a choice.”

Actually, he has money and can send his kids to school anywhere, so he does have a choice. Damon wants to deny the rest of America school choice by opposing the voucher system.

Like most who can, including me, we seek out the best schools for our kids. Mine attended public schools for grades K-5; then, when their public middle school was found lacking, we sought out the best possible academic private school. Not knowing what to look for, I just knew the 100-yard dash school record started with 11.

Celebrities live by a different set of rules and inhabit a world of their own self-righteous delusions. This makes them perfect liberals. They fly Gulfstream G-5 jets that get 1.3 mpg 3,000 miles from NY to LA (roundtrip fuel cost about $25,000). They magnanimously do this so they can accept an environmental awareness award. Then they imply Americans are selfish for driving our 16 mpg SUVs to work each day.

In my award-awaiting column “Why Liberals are Liberals,” I pointed out the fundamental reason actors are liberals: they have an innate guilt about the source of their fortune. They feel their money is unearned, accompanied by the knowledge they have not accomplished anything tangible. Actors have to be liked. Being a liberal comes across as nicer at cocktail parties, since liberals are for everything and against nothing. By their own yardsticks, they are heroes.

Question limousine liberals about their beliefs and their answer is as awkward as one of Barack Obama’s when his teleprompter isn’t working. These people tend to speak of a Utopian world of equality, yet they seem veryfocused on who is on Hollywood’s A-list and who is relegated to the B-list.

Damon rationalized his decision to send his kids to a California private school by lamenting that the state’s public schools weren’t “progressive” enough for him. Perhaps he would prefer a Montessori School of Engineering, focused more on feelings and drawing one’s own conclusions. It matters not that not a bridge you design is structurally sound; it is more about your feelings about what a bridge could be and its metaphor for bridging racial divides. Sure, people will die because you did not design it properly, but that is really society’s fault. All that matters is “the journey.”

So let’s talk about the most liberal state in the Union and examine how it could not be “progressive” enough for Matt Damon’s kids.

Around stimulus time, Obama gave 2.5 billion dollars to California teachers to spend as they pleased. They spent it on TV commercials asking for more tax money.

In its healthcare plan, the University of California approved paying for sex-change operations. Many citizens were angered, saying that the money would be better spent on roads. California teachers were angry because they were only given two sex-change options. A prisoner in California had a sex change operation paid for, then didn’t like the result. The state paid to change him back. This why I never throw out old clothes.

California is last among the states in new business creation. People are leaving in droves, fleeing regulations, taxation, earthquakes and Kardashians. Millions have left for lower tax states like Utah, Arizona and Nevada, which are now brimming with very tanned, fit and good-looking people with terrible FICA scores.

The only job growth is in medical marijuana shops, so the state held a job fair. About three million folks meant to show up.

Led by PETA, the town of Calabasas, Calif. voted to ban the trapping or killing of coyotes which plagued the town. The citizens said they wanted to live in harmony with nature – and without their dogs and toddlers.

If the schools in California are not progressive enough for the Damon kids, maybe on their first day of school they should try to unionize their shop class.